Digital-first Public Relations in Asia

Asia is at the leading edge of most digital trends, such as mobile as the primary device, online video consumption and social media's saturation of everyday life.

Asia's public relations industry has acclimated to these shifts in fits and starts. We have seen a few brilliant examples and as many glaring failures.

In a recent Economist report on Asia's digital disruption, the author outlines the rise of mobile, social media and e-commerce drawing seven conclusions:

1. Technology changes everything or nothing

2. Go mobile or go home

3. Join the dots in a fragmented world

4. Get personal with big data

5. Don't be content with traditional content

6. Promote interactivity, but be the leader of your tribe

7. Breathe in the O2O

The report features deep data from the Economist Intelligence Unit as well as worthwhile interviews with executives living at the front lines of Asia's digital disruption. Three points stand out for public relations practitioners, specifically, writers.

#1 Creativity is king, again.

While many have rightly hailed digital marketing and public relations as the triumph of data, it's important to recognize that creativity and the writer's art of storytelling continues to resonate. Facebook's VP for APAC, Dan Neary, explains.

At Facebook Mr. Neary agrees:“Creative used to be king, but when marketing first went digital and it was mostly about search, you’d hear people argue that creative wasn’t so important, it was just about algorithms.” But, he stresses, such views are mistaken. “Technology should enable better creative, not replace it. Storytelling is critical. Technology offers huge scale, but even at scale, great creative feels personal. We believe creativity is truly king again.”

Conversations are more fragmented than they have been since the rise of mass media. While a few channels can still deliver massive reach for pushing messages, the vital conversations that follow happen in disparate digital corners.

A narrative connects with different people and connects different people, potentially tying together conversations across social media, messaging apps and blogs. While many still prefer to fight the top-down, expensive battle of SEO, the bottom-up narrative approach is winning larger slices of marketing budgets.

#2 Consumers expect more from content on mobile

The conventional wisdom says that the first generation of web pages were recreations of the yellow pages. Brands created glitzy and shiny websites with layers of pages and directories, but they were purely static information until new coding techniques added interactivity to the user experience.

The implications of the mobile transition are manifold. For a start, it means adjusting content and marketing messages so that they are appropriate for smaller screens and new types of devices. Equally, the types of consumer that are going mobile are changing. As mobile internet adoption spreads, young and hip consumers are being joined by older peers.

With mobile, however, people expect to be part of the discussion. Facebook may be the last big consumption-focused medium, and even they are trying to change that.

Anthony Ho, Managing Director of Greater China Media for Mondelez elaborates.

Just as important, the rise of mobile means understanding new forms of consumer behaviour. “As consumers embrace mobile, they change,” says Mr. Ho. “They become much less passive consumers of content and much more interactive. We have to understand that and change our content accordingly.”

The reality is that content on mobile should invite and enable your stakeholders, whoever they may be, to share, respond, co-opt or otherwise repurpose your content. Brands need to create content with the public's uses in mind, which requires a mental shift for more defensive brands.

#3 Speak softly, but stand at the center

The main message for PR professionals is that setting up an anodyne arena where they control the discussion and keep it on message is no longer effective. Rhetoric is making a big comeback as brands are forced to win hearts and minds rather than blast messages through mass media.

Martin Roll, brand strategist and advisor at McKinsey & Co. explains.

But, while interactivity is important, it needs careful management, argues Mr. Roll at McKinsey. “There is a big trend towards interactive content and two-way communications, and allowing users to be part of the brand, but companies can’t let consumers take over,” he says. “Brands have to stand for something, and if you’re running online communities, it has to be the company that leads the conversation. Tribes always have leaders at their centre, and you have to make sure that you are the leader.”

To succeed in the new digital PR environment, brands need to embrace the old ways of rhetoric. Talented, wise women and men who understand how to craft arguments, steer discussions and excite audiences will be more effective at navigating Asia's new digital disruption.

*** Asia’s Digital Disruption: How technology is driving consumer engagement in the world’s most exciting markets is an August 2015 Economist Corporate Network (ECN) report, sponsored by Dentsu Aegis Network. The ECN performed the research, conducted interviews and wrote the report independently. You can download the full report here.